Houston skaters are ready to break in new park

SICK SESSIONSStoked about the parkHouston skaters are ready to break in the new downtown skateboarding park

MICHELLE CASADY, Copyright 2008 Houston Chronicle

Published 5:30 am, Saturday, May 31, 2008

Photo: Kevin Fujii, Chronicle

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Ben Raybourn skates in the expert bowl of the Lee and Joe Jamail Skatepark. The park, which opens at 1 p.m. today, offers all levels of skaters something fun to do.

Ben Raybourn skates in the expert bowl of the Lee and Joe Jamail Skatepark. The park, which opens at 1 p.m. today, offers all levels of skaters something fun to do.

Photo: Kevin Fujii, Chronicle

Houston skaters are ready to break in new park

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The city's newest swimming pool doesn't have any water in it, but Ben Raybourn can't wait to dive in.

"It looks crazy," says the Rosenberg teenager.

The pool, one of the highlights of the new Lee and Joe Jamail Skatepark on Buffalo Bayou, was never designed to hold water. It's built instead for thousands of local skateboarders who are expected to use the park near downtown after its grand opening today.

Such pool replicas — the one at Jamail comes with steps, a shallow and deep end, and even a drain at the bottom — are a common feature at skate parks around the country. They're built in homage to the early days of skateboarding, when skaters had to rely on drained swimming pools to develop and show off new tricks.

Raybourn, a 15-year-old skateboarding whiz likely to turn pro in a few years, surveyed the Jamail pool on a recent Saturday and declared it a challenging one.

"I was lucky enough to skate it earlier this year," he said. "I've skated real pools, and I've skated skate pools, and this one by far is the best."

He's not the only person stoked about the new park.

"People have been waiting on this to open for some time," agreed Doug Earle, a deputy director with the Houston Parks and Recreation Department. "We're looking forward to serving the skate community. It's been a long time coming and a dream come true for lots of people."

The park, just off Sabine on Buffalo Bayou, includes 30,000 square feet of skateable area with features that appeal to beginner as well as advanced skateboarders. It boasts the world's largest known "cradle," a concrete half-dome with a 20-foot diameter.

The $2.7 million park project had some trouble getting off the ground.

"It was not easy at first because, for a lot of the funders, it was a foreign concept," said Roksan Okan-Vick, executive director of the Houston Parks Board. "But once we really became educated about it, it was so easy to understand the need, and there was no opposition after that."

Part of the education process came from the group PUSH, or Public Use Skateparks for Houston.

"We got together, and we thought, 'This is crazy, in a city as affluent as Houston, that there's no skate park,' so we created PUSH," said co-founder Barry Blumenthal.

"Generally, private skate parks go out of business and skaters are forced back on the streets," he explained. "That's why we wanted this one to be a free, public skate park."

Blumenthal and PUSH co-founder Jason Espeseth also worked with designers to make sure Houston's newest skate park would leave a lasting impression.

"We wanted to make sure that in 10 or 20 years the course would still be challenging," Blumenthal said. "It was really designed with progression in mind so it could be as challenging as you want it to be."

City officials also hope the park will keep skaters off private property.

"They really haven't had a well-designed, challenging enough course," said Okan-Vick, "so they would look for places to skate on private property or places that are not necessarily safe."

As many as 100 skaters should be able to skate in the park at any time. Earle expects an even bigger crowd today.

"I'd say hundreds if not thousands will be there for the opening," he said.

Helping kick off the park will be more than 30 professional skaters and local DJs. Representatives from several skate-affiliated companies will be giving away merchandise.

Meanwhile, Espeseth said PUSH has more work to do.

"There's definitely a demand for parks like this all over the Houston area, so our job's not over yet," he said. "I don't think any of the other parks will be this big. This one is definitely the flagship park for Houston, but we'd love to see some satellite parks develop."

Don't worry, parents — safety a priority

For any activity that includes airborne acrobatics and gravity-defying spins — with nothing but concrete to soften the fall — safety has to be an issue.

At the Lee and Joe Jamail Skatepark, officials are addressing the issue in several ways.

1. Helmets are required.

2. The park will be monitored during operating hours, much like a city swimming pool is manned with lifeguards.

3. The park will close at 10 p.m. daily and during wet conditions. (It will open at 8 a.m. Monday-Saturday, and 1 p.m. on Sunday.)

4. Children under the age of 10 must be accompanied by a parent or authorized adult.

"The idea is for safety. We just want everyone to be safe," Doug Earle, a Houston Parks and Recreation Department deputy director, said of the helmets requirement.

"It's unequivocal the protective effect of a helmet," he said. "Especially in skateboarding. When they hit their head on the concrete, it's not just a skull fracture, but it can also lead to a brain injury. The potential is that that can cause brain damage. There's also the potential for some head injuries to cause seizures."

At today's grand opening, Mancuso Harley-Davidson will be giving a free S-1 skateboard helmet to the first 200 skaters who come through the park gates.

"Well, I'm a motorcycle dealer and in selling these products, we're concerned about safety and proper attire," said John Thompson, CEO of Team Mancuso PowerSports. "This is the next generation of kids coming up, so we just thought it was a great tie-in and something that was nice to do."

Earle noted that the Parks and Recreation Department has hired people who skateboard themselves to work at the park. These folks, he said, "understand the nuances of the sport and how to instruct people in the etiquette of the sport."

For Ben Raybourn, a 15-year-old skateboarder, a skating accident in Phoenix illustrated the benefits of wearing a helmet. Raybourn's father, Bruce, recalled that when his son lost his balance and fell, the impact cracked the helmet but spared the boy serious injury.